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Saturday, 1 February 2014

Saturday's Mileage

Which was, to put it simply a lot. As I'm off the road for a few weeks I'm totally reliant on Suffolk Links to get me to the bus network now, and to my body's abject horror the only time slot they had free for today was an 0715 pick up. So while it was basically stilll dark the minibus picked me up and took me to Wangford where I picked up Anglian gas bus 104 and stayed on it to Yarmouth. Had a natter with the driver who told me of something he had heard from two different sources that I'm not sure enough of to repeat here yet, but all I will say is it involves branding. Remember you heard it hinted here first!!

Anyway the object of today was to try to get on an Olympian and maybe get a pic of the newly painted 33423. So I thought it prudent to head down to Caister Road to see what was going on. Disappointment on many levels. Not only was the chap on duty pretty surly and refused point blank to let me have a look round to take some pics but he told me that no Olympians were going out today and that 33423 won't be back to Monday. What I did see, though was round the back 34113 is parked up with a notice saying "in reserve, no parts to be taken". That clearly doesn't include the driver's seat which is conspicuous by its absence

That left quite a few hours to kill so I messaged the owner of Yarmouth Bus Page to let him know not to bother going to Caister Road and he asked if I was up for a meet and some spotting. Sounded good, so I met him back at Market Gates and we came up with the idea to do a big loop using the 1/X2/X1 via Lowestoft and Norwich. This resulted in some B9 comparisons. First of all 37574 to Lowestoft. A particularly rattly pole was a constant irritance, and I have noticed that for some reason the Yarmouth B9's rattle more than the Lowestoft B9's. Absolutely no idea why that is.

This was confirmed at Lowestoft where we boarded an impressively clean 37566 for the journey to Norwich. Cameron has said on his blog tonight that it was his best ever journey on a B9, and the comparison in quietness with 574 was quite noticeable. We got to Norwich in the nick of time to jump on 37578 for the return to Yarmouth. I left my 4th hat of the winter on 566 in the process - the lost property office is full of my hats! Anyway 578 redeemed Yarmouth's reputaion as it gave a nice quiet non rattly journey back to Yarmouth along a very windy Acle Straight.

After a bite to eat Cameron got on his beloved 37562 back to Gorleston and I got on Anglian Scania 454 back to Wangford and my minibus home. On the way we passed an Optare Versa on the 61's, which replaced gas bus 106 which failed at Yarmouth earlier today. There was also unusually a gas bus on the 60's today. It was also a gloriously sunny day which is very welcome but made photography impossible so apologies for the lack of pics. I would also like to wish Cameron Happy Birthday for later this week and cheers for your company today, mate.

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All views and opinions, unless otherwise stated are mine alone. I am not affiliated to any operating company or tendering authority. I want to publish as many positive posts as possible, but I am a passenger before spotter, and I make no apology for consistently challenging both tendering authorities and operating companies to provide an increasingly improving public transport system that provides reliability, convenience, comfort and value for money. Anyone is free to contact me with any concerns at anytime.All pictures and information within blog posts are copyright and not to be republished or copied without prior permission and/or due credit given.